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ART EDUCATION 


MABEL J. CHASE 


Assistant Supervisor of Drawing in the Public Schools 
of Newark, N. J. 


Baker Printing Company 
Newark, New Jersey 
1910 





PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND ART EDUCATION 


From a subject of comparative simplicity and one re- 
quiring little material besides paper and pencil, drawing 
in its development into “art education,” during the last 
quarter of a’century, has come to require an equipment 
in which all that represents the best of the world’s art 
is none too ambitious. In place of teaching a few prin- 
ciples, the subject now claims as its aim, beside the 
clearing and fixing of visual impressions through draw- 
ing, the cultivation of a sense of beauty, the elevation 
of commerce and manufactures through the increasing 
use and appreciation of the arts of design, and a keener 
artistic judgment in personal and municipal affairs. 

Grade and art teachers have done something in accu- 
mulating material for use in this work, but the public 
library has responded to the need, and has furnished a 
much greater abundance of illustrative material, and 
has thrown open its doors for art exhibitions and lec- 
tures.. The Free Public Library of Newark, New Jersey, 
with which the writer is most familiar, has been particu- 
larly active and has done much toward bringing about 
an interest in whatever is best in art as well as a better 
condition in municipal affairs, and has been of inesti- 
mable help in co-operating with the public school in 
its art teaching. 

Newark is a strictly commercial and manufacturing 
city; a city which, though two hundred and fifty years 
old, and of three hundred twenty-five thousand inhabi- 
tants, and quite prosperous, has no art features what- 
soever, and is almost without handsome buildings, has 
few private art collections, and has never had a public 
collection of art objects of any sort. Eight years ago, 
there was built, it would seem almost by chance, the 
most useful and practical library building of anything 
like its size. When this building was erected, it was 
the first of any architectural pretensions which this great 


3 


940516 


LIBRARIES AN DESAI 


city had ever built. Fortunately, the work was in the 
hands of a group of very sensible business men who 
travelled and looked about wisely to get ideas, and who 
concerned themselves with the usefulness and practica- 
bility of the building. They secured a good architect. 
They were restrained by their own native good taste and 
by the taste of the architect, and finally by that of the 
decorators, with the result that this building has been 
to the community of very great value as a general sug- 
gestion toward municipal improvement. 

In its interior the building is a splendid lesson to 
everyone who enters its doors. Aside from the beautiful 
marble in the inner court and the woodwork, simply 
treated, the interior decoration is dependent almost solely 
for its pleasing effect on the right use of color. The 
walls of the reading, lending, reference, and study 
rooms, of a rich dull green, with the woodwork of quar- 
tered oak; pieces of pottery, good and attractive in shape 
and color; bronzes, marbles, and a few paintings, make, 
as a whole, a decoration which is dignified, artistic, and 
conducive to the best in art appreciation. Both in its 
own personality and in whatsoever emanates from it, 
the library keeps before the people the truest and best 
in art as a permanent object lesson. 

Through the co-operation of the Newark librarian, it 
has been possible to learn what is being done by libraries 
of other cities in promoting an interest in art. A circular 
letter, in the form of a questionnaire, was sent to fifty 
libraries in different cities, to which thirty-seven re- 
sponded. A few are doing nothing, but express the hope 
that they may soon undertake work of the kind. Natu- 
rally, the smaller cities are doing more than the larger, 
the latter furnishing, through its museums and art gal- 
lery, much of the material which the libraries are pro- 
viding. The ways in which the library has been most 
helpful are through its exhibitions, both temporary and 
permanent; museums, containing material or art speci- 
mens; the department devoted to the especial interests 


4: 


LIBRARIES AND ART 





of schools; picture collections; fine arts bulletins, and 
its hospitality in providing audience rooms for lectures 
and class or club work. 


TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS 


It is through the exhibitions that a widespread influ- 
ence is exerted. During the last six years, fifty-five tem- 
porary exhibitions have been held in the Newark Library © 
with an attendance of 250,000 persons. These include 
exhibits of posters, of book plates, engravings, the works 
of Durer, Japanese prints, architectural plates, work 
of the Newark Camera Club, of the American Fine Arts 
Society, of German art, and of original drawings of 
cartoons. The largest number of persons attending for 
any one year was 107,740 in 1903, when there were three 
art exhibitions. When a display of manual training and 
sewing done in the public schools was given, the attend- 
ance reached 30,000 in two weeks. Two large rooms are 
used for these exhibitions. Screens nine feet long by 
six feet wide covered with green denim give a back- 
ground space of two hundred fifty lineal feet. These 
screens are adjustable, and when in use for exhibition 
purposes are hung by wires and hooks upon stacks con- 
taining reference material which is not in constant use. 
Eight portable screens, nine by six feet, which may be 
used upon both sides, and glass cases upon tables give 
additional opportunity for display. 

A loan exhibition of paintings, owned by citizens of 
Newark and vicinity, has been held for several winters, 
and an attendance of over sixteen hundred persons a 
day gives proof of the interest and appreciation in such 
an arrangement. 

An exhibition of pictures suitable for schoolroom deco- 
ration was productive of good in a better and more 
thoughtful selection and arrangement. This was accom- 
panied by a booklet, prepared by the librarian, upon the 
various kinds of pictures suitable for schoolroom decora- 
tion, the comparative cost of each, and advice upon suit- 


5 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


able mounting and framing. The collection contained 
many of the German and French lithographs by Von 
Volkmann and Riviere, which are so excellent in color 
and composition and so decorative for large classrooms, 
auditoriums, or halls. While these represent only what 
is good in art, they are within the means of all schools, 
as they range in price from one to three dollars. The 
library owns nearly three hundred of these German and 
French lithographs, many of which are framed. Those 
which are of a purely decorative character are not loaned 
to schools, but may be seen at any time if a school is 
making a selection; those which are of an educational 
character, as illustrative of some historic, literary, or 
industrial subject, are loaned to class teachers for a 
month at a time. 

A few months ago an exhibition of Japanese art was 
held which filled two large rooms, one with prints, the 
other with specimens of pottery, lacquer, carved ivory, 
netsukes, medicine boxes, sword blades and guards, fab- 
rics and kakemono. This entire collection was owned 
by a citizen of Newark, who loaned it that the people 
of the city might enjoy its beauty, and was open to the 
public four hours each day. Since that time, through 
the efforts of the librarian and the trustees of the library, 
the city has bought the collection at a cost of ten 
thousand dollars, and it is now placed in the library and 
will be housed there as a permanent collection until such. 
time as the city shall own an art museum. This, as a 
beginning, is bound to arouse interest in the formation 
of a larger collection, but the incentive and initiative 
have come from the public library. | 

Nineteen of the libraries replying to the questionnaire 
have held loan exhibitions of paintings, and about the 
same number have held exhibitions of other art objects, 
as photographs, pottery, or the work of arts and crafts 
societies. The loan exhibitions of paintings are usually 
annual, but those of photographs and other art objects 
are, as a rule, constant, as many as sixteen or eighteen 


6 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


being held in a year. All report a large attendance at 
these exhibitions. 

Fifteen have held exhibitions of industrial and art 
work done in public schools. This work is sometimes 
shown in cases, sometimes on the walls of the art rooms, 
or on the walls of the corridors, delivery or reference 
rooms. 

At the Auburn, Maine, library,,Cosmos pictures have 
been mounted on gray cards and have been displayed 
from time to time, showing the work of a certain artist, 
or a particular school. The subjects chosen have had 
some reference to the time of year, as the study of 
‘Madonnas at Christmas time, or to the work of some 
class or club.’ The object has been to create a general 
interest, and this, it is felt, has been accomplished. Pic- 
ture bulletins are placed in the general and the children’s 
reading rooms, and in the reference room, all of which 
are changed once a month. 

The librarian of the Brooklyn library says, “In the 
children’s room we feel that we do much for the educa- 
tion of the artistic sense by care in putting up beautiful 
things. We do the same in the adult rooms, but do not 
give as much time to it. The beauty and order of the 
building we consider important educationally.” 

Several years ago the library at Marion, Indiana, ar- 
ranged a loan exhibition with such gratifying results 
that it has become one of the regular features of the 
library work. These exhibitions have consisted prin- 
cipally of paintings, oils and water colors. Each year 
an effort has been made to have something that has not 
been exhibited before. Displays from the various pot- 
teries of the United States, collections of bronzes, plaster. 
casts, and local exhibits, including the work of the man- 
ual training and drawing classes of the public schools, 
have been shown. | 

Port Huron, Michigan, reports the holding of exhibi- 
tions of pictures and engravings, and an increasing in- 
terest and appreciation regarding the work. At present, 


7 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


extensive plans are being made for an exhibit which is 
to be loaned by Detroit, and which is to be made up of 
a number of original paintings and a large number of 
reproductions. A small admission fee will be charged, 
the proceeds to go towards a fund for the purchase of 
a painting for the library. At the same time, a formal 
opening of a new museum connected with the library 
will be held. 

In the Peru, Indiana, library, an exhibition of paint- 
ings, which had hung in the Indiana building during 
the St. Louis Exposition, was held. These were by 
Indiana artists. Another exhibition consisted of prints, 
posters, and beautiful things in color loaned by a Chicago 
Art Education Association. This collection was so se- 
lected that it might aid the people in choosing inex- 
pensive yet beautiful and appropriate things for their 
homes and schools. 

At the opening of the Seattle Public Library, a room 
forty by sixty-five feet was set apart for the use of the 
Washington State Art Association. There has been in- 
stalled in this room a loan collection of paintings, and 
the Association and other art societies have made very 
frequent use of the room for exhibitions. These have 
included architecture, Japanese prints, black and white 
oriental rugs, and a collection of John La Farge’s pic- 
tures. School work from the elementary and high school 
departments has been shown on walls, tables, and 
screens. 

For the last three years the Utica Public Library has 
held two or three exhibitions each winter in the gallery 
connected with the library. These are carried on at 
the expense of the library, are free to the public, and 
are made popular in every way; and already an increased 
interest and an anticipation on the part of the public 
iS apparent. 

Before the Worcester Art Museum was established, 
annual loan exhibitions were held in the public library, 
and were well attended. Now that that need is removed, 


8 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


there are still numerous exhibitions of other art objects 
and of industrial and public school work. During the 
past year there have been held a Lincoln exhibit, largely 
loan; exhibitions of photographs of paintings in the 
Louvre, belonging to the library; colored plates and pho- 
tographs of one hundred masterpieces, also belonging 
to the library; and drawings, including stencil work by 
pupils of the evening schools. Notices are sent to 
schools, societies, and interested individuals, and the 
general public is notified through newspaper notices 
and placards placed in stores. The librarian is, ex- 
officio, a member of the Public School Art League, an 
organization working for the best interests of art in 
schools. 


PERMANENT EXHIBITIONS OR MUSEUMS 


Boston, Haverill, Newton, Northampton, and Spring- 
field, Mass., New York, Brooklyn, Dubuque, Iowa, Kan- 
sas City, Louisville, Oak Park, Ill., Omaha, and Wil- 
liamsport, Pa., are the only libraries responding to the 
questionnaire which own a collection of paintings or other 
objects of art. 

The Springfield, Mass., library owns the Aston col- 
lection of wood engravings, some Japanese water colors, 
a few etchings and steel engravings. Connected with 
the library, in a separate building, is an art museum 
containing the George Walter Vincent Smith collections 
of ceramics, swords, rugs, and other objects of indus- 
trial art. 

No loan exhibition of paintings has been held in the 
New York City library, but there have been occasional 
exhibitions of engravings. However, the library owns 
a collection of paintings which is open to the public 
whenever the building is open, and is well attended. 
This has recently been enlarged by the gift of Tissot’s 
Old Testament paintings, which will be hung in place 
when the building is completed. 

In the Dubuque, Iowa, library, the walls of one room 


9 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


are entirely covered with framed pictures of birds, sev- 
eral of which are large Audubon prints. This is called 
the Bird Room, and teachers often take their pupils 
there for study. 

The library at Manhato, Minn., owns a collection of 
Alaskan Indian basketry, and one of American pottery. 

Besides the temporary exhibits in the Newark Library, 
there is a permanent exhibition of engravings of every 
kind: wood, copper, mezzotint, aquatint, lithograph, 
photogravure, half tone, and zine etching; and of pro- 
cesses and tools which, it is hoped, will prove to be the 
nucleus of a much larger collection in time. Of these 
engravings one hundred thirty-six are in frames, and 
hang on the wall, and are changed from time to time. 
The remaining three hundred are in a case where they 
are easily accessible to students. 


SCHOOL DEPARTMENT 


In the School Department of the Newark Library a 
great deal is done for both pupils and teachers. The 
room is a large one, well lighted and most attractively 
furnished, and conveniently situated on the first floor. 
The walls are of a dull green, and the floors are covered 
with corticine, which prevents any noise in walking. 
Upon three portable screens is kept a display of photo- 
graphs or pictures of any subject of current interest. 
These screens, which are placed rather low, are covered 
with green denim, the woodwork being painted black. 
On the walls are hung pictures suitable for classroom 
decoration, or for the illustration of nature, geography 
and history. These are all large, are framed in black, 
and, are hung comparatively low. They are taken from 
a large collection which is frequently changed. 

In this department there is a permanent reference 
library for teachers, including teaching methods, school 
management, all of the text books used in the city, as 
well as many supplementary ones, books upon design 
and schoolroom art, as well as the current educational 


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LIBRARIES AND ART 


—— 


periodicals and art publications. These include not only 
those published in our own country but several of foreign 
publication. Among these are Kokka, an Illustrated 
Monthly Journal of the Fine and Applied Arts of Japan 
and Other Eastern Countries; Art et Decoration; L’Art 
Decoratif; Kunst and Kunst-handwerk, and Moderne 
Kunst. 

This department not only furnishes the best reading 
for children in school and library editions, but shows 
examples of fine editions, creating a knowledge of and 
taste for such things. On the screens in this room have 
been shown samples of drawing done in the city schools. 
These are selected by the supervisor of drawing and 
changed each month, and have served as a valuable 
lesson to the teachers in furnishing an illustration of 
fine work and new ideas, and to the pupils in raising a 
standard or ideal. 


PICTURE COLLECTIONS 


In connection with this department is a collection of 
twelve thousand mounted and one hundred thousand 
unmounted pictures which are loaned to schools or to 
individuals upon request. This includes an unusually 
large collection of plates of design. In bringing these 
together, designs of all kinds have been taken from 
German, English, French, and American periodicals of 
art; and such books as Owen Jones’ Grammar of Orna- 
ment, Foord’s Decorative Flower Studies, and many 
others have been purchased and taken apart and the 
plates mounted separately. Several thousand sheets of 
designs, collected in this way, and covering the very 
best of the world’s art, are arranged by topic, and those 
which are mounted are filed vertically in wooden boxes 
holding about five hundred pictures each, and are in this 
way as easily handled and looked over as the cards in 
a card catalogue. The boxes for these pictures have 
been made by the library’s own carpenter, and are 
twenty-six inches from front to back, fifteen inches wide, 


11 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


and nineteen inches high. The tops are made of compo © 
board which is light in weight and upon which a picture 
may easily be mounted with thumb tacks. The tops 
are kept open during library hours, and the picture 
mounted upon the cover is something of an index to the 
contents of the particular box. The pictures within the 
boxes are mounted on manilla pulp board of medium 
weight, the cards being thirteen by seventeen inches. 

This collection of designs which is unusually rich even 
for a large public library, because the policy of pulling 
books to pieces and reclassifying single sheets has here 
been so courageously followed, is a part of a much larger 
collection of illustrative material of all kinds. It has 
gathered from all possible sources pictures, including 
two or three thousand medium sized photographs of art 
objects. The arrangement of the pictures themselves, 
and a simple index, enables the inquiring student to go 
almost at once to, for example, the portraits of Lincoln, 
pictures of English cathedrals, a collection of flower 
studies, Moorish designs, or the reproductions of the 
paintings of Millet. 

This collection is used chiefly by teachers at present, 
and is largely used. It never remains for two days the 
same, for constantly, as calls arise, additions are made 
to it, either by drawing on the unmounted collection, 
or, if need be, by pulling apart and mounting pictures 
from a volume that covers the subject just then wanted. 
In 1908, twenty-five thousand of these pictures were 
loaned to over nineteen hundred persons, and the usual 
average is nearly three thousand each month. On the 
exhibition boards in the School Department are con- 
stantly kept examples from this picture collection of any 
subject which is of particular interest at the time. When 
the book-plate was the problem given the college exten- 
sion class in design recently, a display selected from the 
several hundred in this department was placed upon 
these screens. 

There come to the library a great many small, at- 


12 


LIBRARIES AND ART 





tractive pictures in color, sometimes as supplements to 
illustrated journals, sometimes as parts of art works 
that may be taken apart for the picture collection already 
described, and sometimes as the result of purchase at 
very small cost, of broken or second-hand sets of “art 
works.” Most of these things are put into the picture 
collection, being classified for their utility rather than 
their beauty. A rather unusual use of some of these has 
been made by a teacher of literature in the Newark High 
School, who is accustomed to say that all life should be 
lived at the level that one finds in a beautiful work of 
art. At her suggestion and for her especial use, the 
library has mounted a considerable number of these 
miscellaneous pictures chosen from all times, all schools, 
and all degrees of excellence. She calls this collection 
which is kept in her room in the High School, her “art 
for art’s sake” collection. Not infrequently in giving a 
talk to her pupils in connection with any topic, she 
brings out from one to a dozen of these charming things 
from Jugend or a colored picture from Illustrirte Zeitung, 
and attempts to make her students see that the painting 
into which a man of genius has put some of the best of 
himself, tells us, for example, more fully and more quick- 
ly than can columns of print what we may see to admire 
and enjoy in the prospect that nature spreads before us. 
The practice of collecting and loaning material to 
schools is general, twenty-seven of the thirty-seven 
libraries responding doing this to a greater or less extent, 
and all report that this material is used to a remarkable 
degree. It includes pictures for illustrative purposes, 
photographs of works of art, and sheets of design. There 
is a diversity in the arrangement and storing of this 
material; boxes are used and their contents arranged by 
subject; cabinets and portfolios; big manilla envelopes; 
drawers, and Harvard filing cases. Only nine libraries 
loan pictures large enough for classroom decoration, and 
few have made use of ‘German educational lithographs. 
The Springfield, Mass., library owns many thousand 


13 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


prints gathered from books, magazines, and many other 
sources, of which from twelve thousand to fifteen thou- 
sand are loaned each year. It also owns photographs 
and photogravures of works of art, and a very large and 
valuable collection of portfolios and plates on decoration 
and design. These are borrowed by teachers, students, 
artists, architects, designers, decorators and engravers. 
A most encouraging feature is the very extensive indus- 
trial use of the plates of decoration and design made by 
artists, artisans, and designers of Coes, wall paper, 
book covers, and by illustrators. 

Cincinnati has a collection of pictures and photographs 
arranged according to the Dewey classification, encased 
in heavy manilla envelopes, and circulated ten at a time. 
Children’s drawings are mounted, placed in envelopes, 
and circulated. An art collection of large framed pic- 
tures, reproductions of famous paintings, sculpture, and 
architecture is loaned in the city, and it is hoped that 
with the coming year it will be possible to send it out 
among the county schools and libraries. 

In Dubuque, Iowa, the collection of pictures and pho- 
tographs is mounted on heavy gray cardboard. Each 
picture has a pocket and card on the back, and is charged 
the same as a book. A picture cabinet is used, and 
pictures are arranged in alphabetical order under artist 
and under country. A card catalogue is placed on top 
of the cabinet with entry under artist and also under 
title of picture. 

A collection of fifty masterpieces published by Double- 
day, and about two thousand Braun prints are owned 
by the Port Huron, Michigan, library, and are loaned 
upon request. These are kept in a vertical file, arranged 
alphabetically by artist, and are accompanied by an 
artist, subject, and title index. 

' In Northampton, Mass., the teachers of art make lists 
every year of pictures which their pupils will study. 
The library furnishes these, and also provides illustrative 
material for study clubs. It loans large collections of 


14 


LIBRARIES AND ART 





pictures to other libraries as well. The collection num- 
bers over ninety thousand, and the circulation last year 
was twenty thousand. 

Buffalo, with one of the finest art buildings in the 
country, and a very active Art Society, needs to do little 
through its library, but before the present building was 
given to the Art Society, the organization had quarters 
in the library building. However, it has a large collec- 
tion of pictures used in connection with school work and 
gathered from many sources. 

The Division of Visual Instruction of the New York 
Education Department which works in connection with 
the State Library prepares and loans to schools, libraries, 
and other educational institutions, wall pictures, hand 
photographs, and lantern slides. About twenty cata- 
logues enumerating the lists of slides of various countries 
have been issued. About eighteen hundred wall pic- 
tures are in constant use. The department owns thirty 
thousand different negatives from which lantern slides 
are made, and is constantly adding to this supply. The 
fee charged for the use of these articles is nominal only, 
and is intended merely to cover the cost of transporta- 
tion. For example, a wall picture is loaned at a cost 
of fifty cents a year. The collection is catalogued after 
a slightly modified decimal system. 


LECTURES AND LECTURE HALLS 


Another means of influence which the library exerts 
in its efforts to promote art education is through its 
lectures and its ability to offer a meeting place for 
societies and various classes, or the public at large. In 
this again, the Newark Library is particularly fortunate 
in having at its disposal room which it generously offers. 
No other library in the country, of its size, has more 
than a quarter of the room this building has for both 
library and public uses. The building is big enough for 
fifty years to come for library purposes, and for much 
of that time will serve as a center for the literary life 


15 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


of the city. There are a number of commodious rooms 
free for the use of classes, societies, or artists’ clubs 
whose aim or object is an educational one. Last winter 
a class, organized for the study of historic architecture, 
met regularly in one of these rooms, and also made use 
of plates and engravings belonging to the library. 


A large audience room on the fourth floor accommo- 
dating four hundred persons is used, free of expense, 
for any meeting that is educational in its aim. The 
college extension lectures are held here; meetings of 
teachers with supervisors, lectures for the public under 
the auspices of the Board of Education, and occasional 
lectures upon paintings, design, and municipal art. This 
hall is provided with a modern dissolving lantern with 
a 12 x 12 curtain and a number of slides illustrative of 
art and travel. The lantern is at the service of those 
who make use of the room, and is available at any time. 
A charge of eight dollars is made for the use of the 
lantern and curtain, and the services of the operator. 
For school use the charge is much less—in fact, merely 
nominal. The hall is also provided with a reflectoscope 
which when placed about thirty-four feet from the screen 
will reflect upon it any picture not over five inches 
square, in all the colors of the original. It will reflect 
also a picture or part of the text from a printed book, 
the image being properly reversed by a mirror before 
it leaves the instrument. By means of a collection of 
postal cards, of which the iibrary has about thirty-five 
hundred, a talk can be interestingly illustrated with 
the instrument at a minimum expense. 


As many as six meetings may be held at the same time 
within the building, accommodating over seven hundred 
persons if necessary. Not long ago two of the large 
rooms were given up to an exhibit of designs for 
jewelry, made up from the library’s own collection, and 
while these were in place the Jewelers’ Association of 
of the city invited one of the prominent art teachers of 


16 


LIBRARIES AND ART 





the country to speak before their association, in the 
Library building. | 

_ The total number of meetings of an educational and 
literary nature that have been held during the last 
seven years is 3,657; the largest for a single year being 
685. 

In this reaching out to the general public, Newark is 
not alone, for twenty-one of the reporting libraries have 
rooms where educational or art meetings are held. 

In the main library of Louisville, Kentucky, and in 
its five branches, a lecture room is provided, which con- 
tains special electrical outfit for stereopticon views 
. thrown directly upon the painted wall. The aim is to 
familiarize the people with some of the great paintings 
which cannot be brought to the city. In the children’s 
department a small class is conducted during the winter, 
showing the children reproductions of famous pictures, 
and telling stories connected with these. There was 
also given in this library last winter a course of six 
lectures on art, by a lady who had just returned from 
study abroad, where she had been especially sent for 
this purpose by a class of ladies numbering about one 
hundred forty. 

A large collection of lantern slides on art subjects is 
owned by the Cincinnati library and is in constant use 
during the winter months. A series of art talks for 
children, illustrated with the stereopticon, is given each 
season, and a booklet, containing some of the pictures 
in the children’s room with a description of each, has 
been distributed among the children. Stereoscope ma- 
chines which have been installed in the children’s room — 
for the last few years are doing good work. 

The art work of the Port Huron library is in charge 
of an art committee, and an Art Study Club has existed 
for a number of years. There is also a Camera Club, for 
whose use a dark room has been fitted up in the library, 
and whose work is encouraged by competitive exhi- 
bitions. 


17 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


The Boston Public Library is in close touch with the 
Museum of Fine Arts and the art schools. Tables are 
reserved during the school year for each school, and one 
session of the Evening Free Drawing School is held each 
week at the library. Free lectures on art are given every 
Thursday during the winter season, and classes and 
seminaries in the fine arts under competent instructors 
are held frequently in the Fine Arts Department or the 
Lecture Hall. 


ART DEPARTMENT 


Most of the large libraries replying to the question- 
naire state that they have art departments without spect- 
fying in detail the work attempted. 

There is in Utica, New York, the remnants of an old 
Art Association. Realizing the importance of reaching 
the industrial and practical people in the community, 
its members have formed themselves into an industrial 
Library League, and through their efforts over a thou- 
sand dollars worth of books, on practical and industrial 
subjects, representing the industries of Utica, have re- 
cently been added to the library. 

The art department is the latest undertaking of the 
Newark Library, a large room being at present fitted 
up for art material alone. Here will be kept the books 
on art, one hundred fifty of which contain large plates. 
These will be accessible during all library hours, and 
here and in the adjoining rooms they will be displayed 
for general inspection at least twice each winter. About 
one thousand sheets of design mounted singly for lend- 
ing, and arranged conveniently for examination, like cards 
in a catalogue; two thousand mounted photographs of 
paintings, sculpture and architecture; book plates, num- 
bering one thousand, mounted and arranged according to 
country and designer, will also be kept in this room. 


18 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


Numerous lists like those below are of assistance in 
selecting a book for use in a certain subject: 


Japanese Art 


Pictorial Arts Anderson 
Arts and Crafts Dick 
Japanese Art Gonse 
Landscape Gardening in Japan Conder 
Ceramic Art in Japan Audsley 
Ornamental Arts Audsley 
Arts of Japan Dillon 
Masters of Ukioye Fenollosa 
Color Prints Strange 
Japanese Floral Calendar Clement 
An Artist’s Letters from Japan La Farge 
Flowers of Japan Conder 
Japanese Prints Pepper 
Japanese Art Startmann 
Hokusai Holme 
Ideals of the East Okakura 
Japanese Wood Engraving Anderson 
Jewelry—Gold and Silversmiths 
Gold and Silversmith’s Work Pollen 
Designs for Gold or Silversmiths Pugin 
Silverwork and Jewelry Wilson 
Modern Design in Jewelry and Fans Holme 
Art of Goldsmith and Jeweler Wigley 
Goldsmith’s Handbook (Gee 
Jeweler’s Assistant Gee 
Hall Marking of Jewelry Gee 
Modern Designs of Jewelry Anon 
Goldsmiths’ and Silversmiths’ Work Dawson 
Jewelry Repairer’s Handbook Keplinger 
Gem-cutter’s Craft Claremont 
Bijouterie Francaise Vever 
Repousse Metal Work Horth 


19 


LIBRARIES AND ART 


A “Fine Arts Bulletin” is published each month and 
sent to any person who wishes it. This gives a brief 
outline of the leading art contributions in the current 
numbers of the magazines, thus saving the time of busy 
people in locating articles in which they may be in- 
terested. 

One of the most interesting acquisitions of the library 
is a Washington hand printing press. Upon it are 
printed notices of exhibitions and meetings, which are 
displayed in the entrance hall. Selections from famous 
writings are printed, showing a fine marginal spacing 
and arrangement. These have been given to the schools, 
where they have been framed, and teach a valuable 
lesson in fine composition. Three fonts of Cheltenham 
type are owned by the library for use upon this press. 

Another helpful feature is that of placing in the library 
jars containing flowers, branches of trees and shrubs, and 
stalks bearing fruit. Hydrometer jars are used to hold 
these sprays. These are glasses in the form of cylinders 
with flat bases, are eight and ten inches high, and are 
entirely without ornament or decoration or curve of any 
kind. They are purchased from Whitall, Tatem Com- 
pany, wholesale druggists, of 46 Barclay Street, New 
York City, who make a special price for schools and 
libraries. 

The Shade Tree Commission furnishes a part of the 
material used in this way, and the members of the 
library staff provide a considerable amount. 

One spray rather than a mass is placed in each jar, 
that the detail of growth may be seen, and great care 
is exercised to show characteristic growth. The jars 
stand in a row either on a table, desk, catalogue case, or 
shelf, and in the children’s room on a long low table. 
Labels of cardboard, two by four inches, are used to 
name each specimen. These are placed flat on the table 
or against the base of the jar. 

In April and May twigs of common trees as the maple, 
elm, poplar, tulip, willow, birch, and oak are shown; 


20 


LIBRARIES AND ART 








during June, July, and August sprays of common wild 
flowers; in September and October seed pods and fruits 
of wayside plants, and later ever-greens, holly, and 
mistletoe. 

The aim is to show the beauty of common flowers, 
branches, and seed pods, to call attention to individuality 
of stem and growth, and to interest pupils and older 
people in a study of nature. 

The old definition of a library as a depository for 
books is no longer adequate. With the evolution of a 
more complex life about us, its interests and usefulness 
have expanded in many directions, but in none has it 
accomplished more than in awakening a love for and a 
knowledge of what is good:in art. This is especially 
true in carrying on the work among young people by 
co-operating with the efforts of teachers, and in furnish- 
ing such a wealth of material for their aid. 


21 


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